Twitter Acquires Cover: A Lockscreen Replacement App for Android

The best thing about Android is the ability to customize the entire interface according to your taste. You can change the application icons as well as fonts and homescreen unlike iOS. However, one area that remains relatively unexploited on Android is the Lockscreen. Although since the jellybean update, we have had the ability to add widgets and customize the lockscreen to a degree, but it is barely enough for the Android enthusiasts. Most of them in such a case have to go to a third party application like maybe Widget Locker.

However, Cover is an interesting application that adds contextually relevant stuff to your lockscreen making it a bit more useful than being an interface to unlock your smartphone. We had seen Facebook introduce Home to take over the lockscreen of your device with FB and Instagram updates, but that certainly did not work out in the long term. Now, Twitter has purchased Cover in perhaps an attempt to do something similar with your Twitter feed. It is not exactly clear how Twitter plan to use Cover after this acquisition as it was made clear that Cover for the time being will remain a standalone app on Google Play. No financial details of the takeover were revealed either. Here is the entire press release regarding the take over:

We started Cover a year ago because we believed in two things: 1) the untapped potential of the supercomputers we carry in our pockets, and 2) the amazing power of Android. We built a replacement for Android’s default lockscreen that makes our phones easier to use by adapting to our context — providing fast access to the right apps at the right time.

Since launching Cover in October, we’ve had the privilege of reaching hundreds of thousands of people. We’ve improved Cover with their help and feedback, and demonstrated how Android can help make people’s lives easier.

It’s been an incredible journey, a journey that we’re excited to announce is taking a turn today as we bring the Cover team to Twitter to take these ideas even further.

Twitter, like Cover, believes in the incredible potential of Android. They share our vision that smartphones can be a lot smarter — more useful and more contextual — and together we’re going to make that happen. We’ll be building upon a lot of what makes Cover great, and we’re thrilled to create something even better at Twitter.

So what does this mean for the Cover app? For now, Cover will remain available in the Play Store while we focus our attention on our work at Twitter. If that changes down the road, we’ll provide another update here.

Thanks to all of you who beta tested our app, provided feedback, and helped us build Cover into what it is today. We’re excited for this next chapter and can’t wait for you all to try out what’s next.

About Blogtechnika

Blogtechnika is a tech blog focused on solving computer and internet related problem of daily PC users. The main goal of this blog is to solve computer and internet related issue with the help of step by step guide. All the articles contain high resolution screen shots which are helpful for novice users.